Lehigh Outlasts Yugoslavians 103-90 College Basketball

It was a fire-and-ice combination - patience and intensity - that launched Lehigh to a 103-90 warmup win over a visiting Yugoslavian team called Partizan-Belgrade at Stabler Center last night.

Sophomore forward Daren Queenan paced the host Engineers with 28 points, including a slam-dunk, three-point play just before halftime that excited the small crowd of perhaps 500 spectators.

The visitors, playing the sixth game in seven days on the American tour, received Lehigh T-shirts and mugs as gifts prior to tipoff - and then went out and got called for enough fouls (some of which were the technical type) to send Lehigh to the line 46 times. The Engineers converted on 31.

"I had seen them play (in Wednesday night's loss to Penn)," said rookie Lehigh coach Fran McCaffery. "They don't like to play defense for extended periods of time . . . They don't seem to have the same intensity on the defensive end of the court. What you can't do is trade baskets with them."

Indeed, the Yugoslavs showed how well they can run and shoot midway through the first half when they jumped to a 12-point margin with less than nine minutes left before intermission. Zelko Obradovic, who led his team with 19 points, scored on a feed from Nebojsa Zorkic - a member of the 1984 Yugoslavian Olympic basketball team - for a 38-26 lead. The visitors also featured a big front line, including 6-10 1/2 Dragan Zivanovic, and 6-9 1/2 Milenko Savovic, a member of the Yugoslavian National Team.

But Lehigh scratched back to within striking distance, as sophomore guard Erick Bronner scored two nice baskets - one on a steal, the other on a lane- drive fake. Queenan's three-point highlight before the break made it 55-49, Partizan-Belgrade.

The Engineers made what McCaffery termed a defensive "adjustment of intelligence" at halftime. Playing almost entirely man-to-man, the Engineers tightened up the "D" early in the second half, and the Yugoslavians scored just three field goals in the opening six minutes.

Lehigh, meantime, moved in front 65-63 on a Tim Russell basket,and soon after Queenan went on a six-point tear - two foul shots, and two field goals, including a steal-and-stuff for a 73-65 lead. The Engineers were never in serious trouble from there on in, and when Mike Androlewicz hit a pair of free throws in the final minute, Lehigh's score hit the triple-figures.

And McCaffery felt his troops got a good game to prepare for Lehigh's official season opener against Kenyon College at 8 p.m. Monday at Stabler. The game with the Yugoslavians, of course, won't count on Lehigh's collegiate season record.

"We handled ourselves well," said the first year coach. "We executed like an experienced team. It was a good opener for us."

For Partizan-Belgrade, it's no rest for the weary. The Yugoslavs will battle Lafayette tonight, their seventh game in eight days.